Railway blockade by farmers upsets schedule of trains

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 7

The railway line blockade by farmers brought Amarpali Express, popularly known as Katihar express, to a grinding halt at Muchchal village, over 30 km from Amritsar, today.

Hapless passengers were soon on their toes carrying their bag and baggage while they alighted from trains. However, the biggest test was for the aged, the handicapped and mothers with babies to hold as they had to walk about three to four km to reach the nearest highway.

An aged passenger, Swaran Kaur, who was being helped by her grandson, said since the train halted at a village, they had no alternative but to walk all the way to the highway. “I would have rather waited and asked somebody to arrange a tempo or a rickshaw to reach the highway. Otherwise, it would have taken hours and posed health problems to me”, she remarked.

With farmers blocking the rail traffic on the city's outskirts near Tangra, departures of seven trains from the Amritsar railway station were cancelled, routes of six trains were diverted and two trains were short-terminated.

The short-terminated trains were the Amritsar-Delhi Shatabdi and the Amritsar Nangal.

The scene at the railway station was chaotic as waiting passengers and their relatives were restless. They blamed the cancellation and delay of the trains on the railway staff. Pleas of the railway staff of their ignorance and the sudden blockade caught them unawares.

A number of trains were affected, thus leaving thousands of commuters stranded at the local railway station.